The Google Docs Viewer lets you open popular document types right inside your browser while freeing your desktop from viewer programs. While it sounds great in theory, the actual product leaves a lot to be desired and has a long way to go before it moves mainstream consumers.

Less than two weeks ago, Google debuted a web-based viewer app designed to render popular document types inside browsers, bypassing the need for desktop viewer apps. Dubbed the Google Docs Viewer, it’s the logical outcome of Google Docs, the search company’s popular online office suite that lets you edit spreadsheets, presentations, and documents inside a browser.

Google hinted at the viewer app when they enhanced Gmail with the ability to view PowerPoint slides and TIFF documents. These enhancements have benefited users in ways more than one. For example, fast document viewing inside a browser means you don’t have to save the file locally. There’s also no need to keep desktop viewers installed, which is particularly useful if you’re using a public machine. These Gmail treats suggested it was only a matter of time before Google released a separate viewer. attached to email messages, followed with the support for

Both the Gmail’s document viewer and the Google Docs Viewer share the same interface which allows you to view page thumbnails, browse individual pages, zoom in and out, select and copy text, even print and download documents. Although Google Docs proponents and avid online users could have benefited from this app tremendously, it suffers from a few serious design omissions that cripple its functionality severely.

Although the Google Docs Viewer is aimed primarily at webmasters and blog owners, anyone can use it. Just visit the Google Docs Viewer page, provide the URL of a PDF, PowerPoint, or TIFF document, and open the resulting link in your browser. Box.net users can use the app to view documents stored within their Box, provided they add the Google Docs Viewer OpenBox Service to their account.

A limited feature set

The basic user interface is fine, but it isn’t enough. The app lacks the upload option to view documents stored on your computer, meaning you can online open documents residing on a web server somewhere. The app’s inability to access Google Docs documents or Gmail attachments is another omission–one expects such an integration from Google. I’d also love Google Toolbar to support setting its file type associations to the Google Docs Viewer so a single click on a PDF, PowerPoint, or TIFF document on any page automatically opens it in the viewer app (current Google Toolbar version allows you to associate documents with the Google Docs service).

There isn’t even a simple browser bookmarklet so I could drag a document link onto it to launch the document in the viewer app. The ability to open documents from my desktop by dragging them to the browser window is another request on my wish list. One a more positive note, feeding the viewer with the document URL provides you with the code snippet that you can embed in your own page or a blog. As a result, you could display TIFF, PDF, and PowerPoint documents inside your page, including the viewer’s navigation controls. Unfortunately, the embedded viewer is set in stone: You can’t change its size, tweak the design, or set a starting page.

Google Docs Viewer: PDF document (screenshot 001)

Google Docs Viewer: PDF document (screenshot 002)

Google Docs Viewer: PDF document (screenshot 003)

Google Docs Viewer: PowerPoint document (screenshot 001)

Conclusion: A missed opportunity, for now

I find the viewer in its current incarnation barely a half-baked product. It clearly needs a lot of work if the app is to provide levels of functionality tailored to mainstream consumers. In its current incarnation, the Google Docs Viewer appeals only to webmasters who will use it to embed PDF, PowerPoint, or TIFF documents inside pages–which is a convenience since visitors aren’t required to have a viewer app installed on their desktop. Visitors can also launch an embedded document in the full Google Docs Viewer window and download or print it. When Google tackles the aforementioned issues, the viewer app might grow into a must-have service for online offices and users who live by the Cloud.

The Google Docs Viewer in bullets:

open PowerPoint, PDF, and TIFF documents inside your browser

feed the viewer the path to your document and generate a link to for use in email and IM

generate a HTML tag to paste into your blog or website for a link to the viewer

create a code for embedded viewers for use in your own blog or site

build your own URLs using the path http://docs.google.com/viewer followed by the url: and embedded: parameters (url: the URL-encoded path to the document to view, embed: if set to true , the viewer will use an embedded mode interface)